Update from AFP: The White House and top Republicans struck a dramatic deal to avert huge New Year tax hikes and postpone automatic spending cuts that had threatened to send the US economy into recession. After months of agonizing over the...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it has extended voting for the 2013 Oscars, after reports of problems with a new online polling system. The elite movie industry body is giving its voting members an extra day — the...

Long journeys into deep space, including a mission to Mars, could expose astronauts to levels of cosmic radiation harmful to the brain and accelerate Alzheimer’s disease, said US research Monday. The NASA-funded study involved bombarding...

A woman in Boca Raton, Florida picked up her car from a valet service earlier this month only to find an insult scrawled on the stub of her parking ticket. “I was mortified,” Sharyn Peoples told Channel 6, NBC Miami. “In...

Two centuries after the French people beheaded Louis XVI and dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood, scientists believe they have authenticated the remains of one such rag kept as a revolutionary souvenir. Researchers have been trying for years...

Monday on Fox News, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said that the U.S. Senate no longer functions as a governing body, but is rather “where ideas go and die.” He called the Senate’s performance with regards to the fiscal cliff...

Language gurus at a Michigan college doubled down on the fiscal cliff Monday in their year-end bucket list of trending words and phrases that ought to be kicked down the road in 2013. Lake Superior State University’s 38th annual...

The Pentagon is bracing for deep spending cuts that will affect every facet of the US military if lawmakers fail to agree to a deal to avert dramatic budget reductions, officials said Monday. The Defense Department will be forced to scale back...

Feeding guests at your Super Bowl party could get a little expensive this year. Why? The price of Buffalo wings has spiked 52 percent in the past year, and analysts expect that to continue. “The wings are really causing some issues,” says Bruce...

Amazon on Monday said it was sorry for a Web Services mishap that put online film streaming service Netflix out of commission on Christmas Eve. “We want to apologize,” Amazon said in a message posted at its website. “We know...

U.S. health regulators said Monday they had licensed a new treatment for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis — the first such federal approval aimed at tackling the deadly disease in 40 years. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it...

Researchers at California Polytechnic State University warn that the U.S. military is working to create and implement technologies that will give soldiers “mutant powers” without fully thinking through the consequences. According to...

MEXICO CITY — Fed up with rampant crime, a Mexico City district is pressing locals to swap personal firearms for bikes, tablet computers and even cash, in a desperate bid to get guns off the streets. Francisco Aro proudly showed off his...

India’s government is to roll out Tuesday the first phase of its hugely ambitious plans to hand out cash to welfare claimants in what it considers a “game-changer” policy 18 months ahead of elections. Finance Minister P....

The Washington Post reported that the House of Representatives will not hold any votes Monday night, ensuring that the country will enter what lawmakers from both major parties have called the “fiscal cliff.” The House declined to...